Is it ever okay to lie to your children?

Last updated: 27/04/2015 10:17 by JillianGlancy to JillianGlancy's Blog
Filed under: MummyBloggers
Just before Easter my five-year-old daughter asked me if the Easter Bunny was real. I wasn’t expecting her to ask out of the blue, so I just said “yes of course!” in high pitched don’t-be-ridiculous voice.
 
You know kids though, they are smart enough to know when you are faltering and trying to tell even the whitest lie. I don’t think my little one was remotely convinced, especially since I am a terrible liar. I can’t lie to save my life. This is why I’d make a terrible spy. Everything is written all over my face. Anyone who knows me well knows this!
 
It did get me when I started to think about the other white lies we tell our children. Like, the other day when I came back home and the babysitter said that the ice cream van had been around. Lucy told her: “my mum says the ice cream van only plays music when there’s no more ice cream left, but I have my suspicions that it’s not true.”
I swear she’s only five, but she’s an old soul, and must have been here before!
 
So you see, dear reader, our kids are smarter than we think. They just somehow inherently know. They can smell a lie. They are like mini detectives. You can’t even eat a chocolate biscuit covertly in the kitchen with a cup of tea because they just know. Even if they don’t catch you in the act, they’ll find the crumbs or smell chocolate on your breath.
 
I know my daughter will only believe in magical things like the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny and ‘you know who’ at Christmas for another few years. I was only nine when I found out about ‘he who must not be named who wears a red suit’.  That means I may only have four more years of innocence and childlike wonder left - good lord!
 
 
I really wish I could press pause, because the years are going by far too quickly for my liking. I’d like to preserve whatever sense of wonder exists for as long as I possibly can, so if this means telling the odd white lie to my child, then so be it.  
 
However, on the flip side, I have discovered that parents have an inbuilt lie detector as well when it comes to our little darlings telling fibs. I’m hoping this will come in handy in the tween and teen years when it will be my turn to be a super detective.
 
Maybe she won’t tell any white lies, but then again, maybe that’s just me lying to myself. I live in hope! 
 
Jillian Glancy is a freelance journalist and expert tea drinker. When she's not playing Princesses with her four-year-old, she can be found running around like a headless chicken, trying to figure out how to do it all and realising it's not quite possible.
 
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